Marcos Valle

Marcos Valle is the Renaissance man of Brazilian pop, a singer/songwriter/producer who has straddled the country's music world from the early days of the bossa nova craze well into the fusion-soaked sound of '80s MPB and into the 21st century. Though his reputation in America has never quite equaled that of contemporaries such as Caetano Veloso, Milton Nascimento, Gilberto Gil, or Tom Zé, Valle is one of the most important and popular performers in the history of Brazilian pop. His second album, 1965's O Compositor e o Cantor, is widely considered among the era's most important. Its hit single, "Samba de Verão," is one of the most covered songs in Brazilian music history. Samba '68 made Valle popular on the American scene. Comprising English versions of earlier hits and new material, its samba and bossa tunes were delivered with purposefully Anglicized sound. His experimental Brazilian albums of the early '70s -- Marcos Valle, Garra, Vento Sul, and Previsao do Tempo -- brought bossa nova into a post-jazz context and annexed it with Baroque pop, sophisticated soul, and funk, disco, and psychedelic rock. Valle's 1981 set, Vontade de Rever Voce, largely written with Leon Ware and Peter Cetera, is an excellent example of boogie-funk samba. After an 11-year break from recording between 1986 and 1997, Valle emerged with Nova Bossa Nova, marking the beginning of a long-term relationship with London's Far Out label. 2001's Escape and 2003's Contrasts also appeared from the label. 2006's pop fusion Jet Samba re-created the production environment of Valle's highly regarded funky samba outings of the '70s. In 2013, he and British jazz vocalist Stacey Kent released the live bossa date Ao Vivo, and reprised the collaboration on 2016's Live at Birdland New York City - From Tokyo to New York. Valle returned to Brazilian funk and disco for 2019's Sempre, his first studio outing in six years. He joined Ali Shaheed Muhammad and Adrian Younge on 2020's Jazz Is Dead 003, and in 2024 released T​ú​nel Ac​ú​stico.